Climate + Imperialism, Decolonization, Globalization, Urbanization, and Empires

I think also incorporating climate topics in imperialism, the world wars, particularly in the second with the development of atomic weapons, and in decolonialisation are great places to tease those conversations with students for your end of year unit. A lot of this with deal with a acceleration of human impact on the environment over time and it's uneven consequences for various populations. 

Sounds like you've got a great opportunity to weave some of these topics in and find some overlap between AP World and Climate Project. The new layout and rollout of Climate Project should definitely help you with this.  Some connections I can think of ...

9.0 Globalization  ---> International Climate Goals

9.1 Technology and the Environment --> Decarbonization

Thanks for starting this conversation, Angela Lee ! I teach BHP, but am always looking for ways to connect current events to historic events. Not sure how far back the AP curriculum goes, but as a former Global History teacher, here are some ideas!: 

• Climate's impact on the rise and fall of civilizations 
• The Great Famine (or any famine)
• Drought 

Like many, I make some really strong connections to climate change with the urbanization game that I use as an introduction to 1750-1900. 

How people interact with the environment is one of those themes that we layer each unit's specifics into.

I do try to make those CCOT connections (so, networks of exchange of 1450-1750, using the 2006 silver DBQ & Potosi to a more recent BBC video about the mining that's ongoing at Potosi) 

Another climate related topic might be how disease was spread along trade routes and waterways throughout the centuries...and how the warming of the climate is widening the reach of many tropical diseases, but also impacting the permafrost layer that's unleashing "zombie" viruses & bacteria. 

 John Vidoli recently mentioned an AMA thread on geography with a treasure trove of resources that could be used to integrate climate conversations throughout the year.

I've been playing around with National Geographic's MapMaker and there are several layers that students can apply and many of them are related to meteorology and physical geography.

I'm thinking about using this tool throughout the year. My first quarter idea is for students to generate a map with two layers and decide if areas of overlap are causal or correlational. For example, is the level of human development in a region related to the amount of rainfall?

A little off topic, but there is also a layer for UNESCO World Heritage Site. I'm considering a recurring project where students pick a site in the continent we're focusing on and make a presentation about it.

I teach WH 1200, so I may be leaning a little hard on geography. On the other hand, my large high school offers ZERO geography courses and we also struggle every year with the "Africa isn't a country" misconception. That's a causal relationship if I've ever seen one!

I hadn't thought about including it in the unit on Imperialism and decolonization, especially with the shift of colonial powers to cash cropping and the devastating affects that had on land - yes, I could highlight that better in this upcoming year!  Thanks!

Thanks for sharing the links and your ideas for the course of the year.

That link to the Silver Trade DBQ, wow, I forgot that I had done that Annotated Rubric with Bill Strickland back in 2006 - what a blast from the past. 

I've adapted the Silver Trade DBQ for the new DBQ format ( but not yet the updated rubric).  Thought I would share here since you mentioned it!

I was also thinking the Little Ice Age? I don't think there is an OER lesson on it, but I thought about Bram Hubbell's lesson "What We Can Learn from a Pair of Skating Owls" from a few years ago, and John Green's video on his World History 2 series on the Little Ice Age.  Some ideas are definitely coalescing for me!